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        <title>Variable Scoping / Learn Vimscript the Hard Way</title>
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                <h1><a href="/">Learn Vimscript the Hard Way</a></h1>
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<ul>
<li><a href="#variable-scoping">Variable Scoping</a><ul>
<li><a href="#exercises">Exercises</a></li>
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<h1 id="variable-scoping">Variable Scoping</h1>
<p>So far Vimscript's variables may seem familiar if you come from a dynamic
language like Python or Ruby.  For the most part variables act like you would
expect, but Vim adds a certain twist to variables: scoping.</p>
<p>Open two different files in separate splits, then go into one of them and run
the following commands:</p>
<pre class="codehilite"><code class="language-vim">:let b:hello = "world"
:echo b:hello</code></pre>


<p>As expected, Vim displays <code>world</code>.  Now switch to the other buffer and run the
<code>echo</code> command again:</p>
<pre class="codehilite"><code class="language-vim">:echo b:hello</code></pre>


<p>This time Vim throws an error, saying it can't find the variable.</p>
<p>When we used <code>b:</code> in the variable name we told Vim that the variable <code>hello</code>
should be local to the current buffer.</p>
<p>Vim has many different scopes for variables, but we need to learn a little more
about Vimscript before we can take advantage of the rest.  For now, just
remember that when you see a variable that starts with a character and a colon
that it's describing a scoped variable.</p>
<h2 id="exercises">Exercises</h2>
<p>Skim over the list of scopes in <code>:help internal-variables</code>.  Don't worry if you
don't know what some of them mean, just take a look and keep them in the back of
your mind.</p></div>

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